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Ethiopian Airlines flight crashes, killing all 157 on board
NAIROBI — An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet to Nairobi crashed early on Sunday with 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, the airline said, and there were no survivors, according to the state broadcaster.
The flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8:38 a.m. local time, before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8:44 a.m. (1:44 p.m., PHL time).
"There are no survivors onboard the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries," said state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting an unidentified source at the airline.
Flight ET 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62 kilometers southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, the airline said, adding that the plane was a Boeing 737-800 MAX, registration number ET-AVJ.
That model number does not exist however and multiple aviation websites later identified the plane as a new 737 MAX 8, the same plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189.
"Search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties," the airline said in a statement.
The flight had unstable vertical speed after take off, said flight tracking website Flightradar24 on its Twitter feed.
At Nairobi airport, many passengers were waiting at the gate, with no information from airport authorities.
"We're just waiting for my mum. We're just hoping she took a different flight or was delayed. She's not picking up her phone," said Wendy Otieno, clutching her phone and weeping.
Robert Mutanda, 46, was waiting for his brother-in-law coming from Canada.
"No, we haven't seen anyone from the airline or the airport," he told Reuters at 1 p.m., more than three hours after the flight was lost. "Nobody has told us anything, we are just standing here hoping for the best."
The Ethiopian prime minister's office sent condolences via Twitter to the families of those lost in the crash.
PHL currently not on list
The Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has also extended its condolences to the loved ones of the victims.
According to a report by Manny Vargas on GMA Super Radyo dzBB, the DFA has instructed the Philippine embassies in Nairobi and Cairo to coordinate with concerned authorities to determine if there were Filipinos on board the plane.
The list of countries the passengers and crew came from, provided by Ethiopian Airlines, currently does not include the Philippines.
Boeing 'deeply saddened'
US aerospace giant Boeing said it was "deeply saddened" and that it would provide technical assistance to find out why its aircraft crashed.
The brand-new Boeing 737 was delivered just last year. The plane is the latest version of the 737 family, the world’s best-selling modern passenger aircraft and one of the industry’s most reliable.
"Boeing is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the passengers and crew on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a 737 MAX 8 airplane," the company said in a statement.
"We extend our heartfelt sympathies to the families and loved ones of the passengers and crew on board and stand ready to support the Ethiopian Airlines team," it said.
"A Boeing technical team is prepared to provide technical assistance at the request and under the direction of the US National Transportation Safety Board."
On Oct. 29, a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.
State-owned Ethiopian is one of the biggest carriers on the continent by fleet size. It said previously that it expected to carry 10.6 million passengers last year.
Its last major crash was in January 2010, when a flight from Beirut went down shortly after take-off. — Reuters
